Have you ever become discouraged or felt like a failure? Maybe you were doing work or ministry for the Lord, but things either fell flat or never went anywhere. You may have thought, “I’m doing a good thing for the Lord, why isn’t He blessing it and making it succeed?”
I remember one particular time when I asked myself these questions. If I could give you one word for a ministry I was serving in, it would be discouraging. What was I doing wrong? Surely in the time I had served in that ministry God could have used me to make at least a little impact.
When I hit a point of deep discouragement, God reminded me of a man who was serving the Lord and felt discouraged too; even going to his grave believing he was a failure. Before I get ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning . . .
Dr. Leslie's Story
William Henry Leslie was born on January 12, 1868 in Ontario, Canada. While working as a pharmacist in 1888, He gave his life to Christ and later moved to Chicago. It was here that God began planting a desire in this young believer’s heart for the mission field.
By 1893, William became a doctor and departed for the Democratic Republic of Congo as a medical missionary. Dr. Leslie settled in the Banza-Mateke region. Two years later, as he battled a grave illness, a missionary nurse named Clara Hill took care of him. Their friendship blossomed and they were married a year later in 1896.
As William and Clara migrated their work to the region in Cuilo, Anglola in 1905, they were met with trial after trial. If work among the tribes wasn’t difficult enough, there was African wildlife and elements to battle with—myriads of ants, charging buffaloes, and hurricanes. Once they even battled a hurricane the night before the birth of one of their children.
It took seven years to clear a small plateau in the jungle beside the Kwilu River. Here they built the new mission station. Dr. Leslie and his wife would serve in the nearby Vanga region for the next 17 years. At the time of their arrival in 1912, several villages still practiced cannibalism, and they were met with intense spiritual darkness.
Dr. Leslie made monthly trips from Banza-Manteke to the mission station and oversaw the work of the native evangelists. He taught the Bible, reading and writing to the children, and began the first organized educational system in the region.
After years of hard labor, Dr. Leslie's work on the mission came to a rough halt when there was a breach in his relationship with the tribal leaders. In short, he was told to leave and not return. Eventually the relationship was reconciled, but this sadly was the end of his ministry in the Congo.
One can only imagine the sorrow and discouragement Dr. Leslie felt. They had seen little evidence of spiritual growth or receptivity to the Gospel, and on top of it, they were forced to leave. The couple returned to the U.S. where Dr. Leslie died nine years later. He died believing his work as a missionary was a failure.
The End?
You might be thinking, “Is that the end—that’s it?” Perhaps this question echoes from your own life. Maybe you feel as though you have failed in your work for the Lord, or maybe that the Lord just isn’t working or moving in your life.
Is that the end?
Though Dr. Leslie himself died believing it was, by God's grace his story continued . . .
The Planted Seed
Almost a hundred years after his death, an evangelist named Eric Ramsey journeyed to the Congo in 2010, and came upon the region where Dr. Leslie and his wife Clara had ministered among Yansi people.
The crop that the couple believed was dead was now producing a hundredfold. Along the Kwilu River and Vanga, he discovered hundreds of believers among the growing churches. Within thirty four miles, there was a church in each of the eight villages; each church even having its own choir!
"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth."
Hebrews 11:13
While some of us, like William Leslie, may never see the results of what we do for the Lord, we can put our hope in a God who does far more abundantly than anything we could ask or imagine with the seeds He enables us to plant. All God needs to make a plentiful harvest for His kingdom is a willing heart. He does the rest. John Quincy Adams put it this way, "Duty is ours; results are God's."
Don't grow weary; God's got the harvest!
Ellis, Mark. “Missionary's Work Seen Yielding Fruit 84 Years after His Death.” Christian Messenger, 7 July 2014, https://www.christianmessenger.in/missionarys-work-seen-yielding-fruit-84-years-after-his-death/.
Rice, Wayne K. “Dr. William Leslie.” Voice Of the Bride Ministries..., 29 May 2016, https://voiceofthebride.net/tag/dr-william-leslie/.
Photo: opentheword.org. A Photo of William’s Missionary Base on the Vanga River in the Congo. 30 May 2014. Accessed 22 Aug. 2022.
“Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”
Such an encouraging exhortation, Thank you for sharing.